Contributor Posts

A dead branch
amongst the leaves,
is gray in color,
contrasting with hues
of reddish-purple,
Japanese maple tree.

What does it mean
when you say, "Born Free?"
Is it free to all,
or just to thee?
An entitlement for some
but not for citizens, all,
removes the neighborly trust,
for one and for all.
Why should we care,
for this, when you are to be
disadvantaged, economically

The smell of Sage,
from brush, blue-green;
an aroma, so good,
it can overcome your sense.
The smell of heated wood,
fills the air, as the Sun
beats down, on Sagebrush land.

Leaves swirling under tree,
an occasional Hornet,
visiting flowers.

Trying to create words
without inspiration
is as if making a new
kind of aberration.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It may look like a paper Moon. Sailing past a canvas Sun. But those are not cardboard clouds. And it's not make believe.  The featured picture of an orange colored sky is real -- a digital composite of two exposures of the solar eclipse that occurred earlier this month. The first exposure was taken with a regular telescope that captured an overexposed Sun and an underexposed Moon, while the second image was taken with a solar telescope that captured details of the chromosphere of the background Sun. The Sun's canvas-like texture was brought up by imaging in a very specific shade of red emitted by hydrogen. Several prominences can be seen around the Sun's edge. The image was captured just before sunset from Xilingol, Inner Mongolia, China. It's also not make-believe to imagine that the Moon is made of dense rock, the Sun is made of hot gas, and clouds are made of floating droplets of water and ice.

Photo by Wang LetianEyes at Night

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What drives auroras on Saturn? To help find out, scientists have sorted through hundreds of infrared images of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft for other purposes, trying to find enough aurora images to correlate changes and make movies. Once made, some movies clearly show that Saturnian auroras can change not only with the angle of the Sun, but also as the planet rotates. Furthermore, some auroral changes appear related to waves in Saturn's magnetosphere likely caused by Saturn's moons. Pictured here, a false-colored image taken in 2007 shows Saturn in three bands of infrared light. The rings reflect relatively blue sunlight, while the planet itself glows in comparatively low energy red. A band of southern aurora in visible in green. In has recently been found that auroras heat Saturn's upper atmosphere. Understanding Saturn's auroras is a path toward a better understanding of Earth's auroras.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

These two panels, composed of video frames made with a safe solar telescope and hydrogen alpha filter, show remarkably sharp details on the solar disk and giant prominences along the Sun's edge on June 6 (top) and June 18. Taken from Beijing, China, they also show a transit of the International Space Station and China's new Tiangong Space Station in silhouette against the bright Sun. The International Space Station is near center in the bottom panel, crossing the solar disk left of bright active region AR2833 and below a large looping solar filament. China's space station is below solar active region AR2827 and right of center in the top panel, seen as a smaller, combined "+" and "-" shape. The pictures of the transiting orbital outposts were taken with the same equipment and at the same pixel scale, with the International Space Station some 492 kilometers away. China's space station was over 400 kilometers from the camera.

Photo by Wang Letian

Grey is the light
of an approaching Dawn.
Dew is the sparkle
on the grassy lawn.

Write all the words,
uncertain they are.
Write them down now,
both near and far
away in this World
and what it must be,
of all the lies,
bordering on idiocy.
Slink back to the shadows,
don't come out into the light.
Stay where you're huddled,
if you don't want to fight.
Lie after lie is the untruth,
which you now see,
but don't except the answers,
for you are crazed like me.

It's a knotty mess
of rope or line.
Don't call it naughty
or a large twine
for it's a rope.
not a fishing line.

Black as night.
Light of day.
Blue of sky
White of clouds.
You've gone away,
To see the World,
A joy to thee,
Recalling memories
Of our history.